Presbyterian St Lukes Hospital School of Nursing - Alpha Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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Medical Board T no time in the history of the ijL Hospital has there been a greater spirit of earnestness, a more unselfish desire to serve humanity or a closer co-operation between the management, the nursing staff, and the medical staff than is mani- fested today. There seems to have been born a new spirit, a broadened vision of what the Hospital should mean to the community and to those seeking succor within its portals. The Medical Board grasps this opportunity of expressing their ap- preciation to the Nursing Staff for their helpfulness and their share in giving to our Hospital this broader scope of usefulness. For many years the Trustees, the Medical Board and the Management of the Hospital have recognized the fact that the old building was inade- quate for the Hospital purposes. In spite of this handicap of obsolete buildings the Management has made it possible, at an ever increasing financial loss, for the Medical Staft to render good service to patients. Fortunately, financial help is in- creasing and the building conditions in Chicago are improving so that the long-dreamed-of new Hospital building on the Indiana Avenue site seems about to be realized. It is planned to build here a Hospital equipped for the most scientific medical and surgical work and which will rank as one of the most modern hospitals in the country. Here better service and greater comfort can be afforded ward patients in the con- templated small, sanitary wards; women in moderate circumstances who refuse to enter the Hospital as free patients and yet can not afford to pay the excessive prices necessary to maintain the present rooms, will be met. Practically all our hospital plans for the betterment of service hinge upon more space, modern wards and better equipment. This new hospital building soon to be erected is, therefore, the greatest boon to both the medical and nursing staff. The Training School has main- tained its high standards and has an ever increasing number of young women with broad education seek- ing admittance to the Nurses ' Train- ing School. The training of the nurses has been extended to include training in visiting nursing, in social service, in occupational therapy, and public health. These fields have been enlarged in order that our nurses may be graduated with a well-rounded training, fully equipped to serve their communities as a whole, as well as the individual case. In addition to the regular routine work of the Medical Staff in the [15]

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various departments of Medicine; Surgery; Gynecology; Obstetrics; Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat; Pathol- ogy, and X-Ray, there have been estabhshed many adjuvants to the regular Hospital service which has extended the usefulness of the work to a marked degree. Many of the medical and surgical services at the Hospital have estab- lished follow-up clinics where dis- charged patients can report back at stated intervals for examination and advice. The effect of their home conditions and occupations upon their physical states are noted and often, through the aid of the Social Service Department, the deleterious conditions are removed. In this way a practical system of preven- tion of new diseases and of recur- rences of the old disease is being developed. For five years St. Luke ' s has had a Social Service Department which has rendered valuable assistance in the homes of our poor patients, has removed many extraneous worries which have tended to delay recovery, and has acted as the friend and adviser of numbers of our patients. Recently this Social Service Depart- ment has been reorganized and ade- quately financed by the Women ' s Board of the Hospital. It is hoped that by co-operating with other relief agencies in the city some service can be rendered to every ward patient. It is the ideal of the Hospital, aided by its Social Service Department, to see that every ward patient is cured of his ailment as far as is humanly possible; is placed in the best environment possible to fully convalesce, and, finally, is su- pervised until he again becomes a useful economic unity of society, be- fore the interest of the Hospital in the patient is relinquished. The Occupational Therapy De- partment of the Hospital is render- ing valuable service in securing this maximum restoration of our pa- tients. It is ably abetted in this effort by the Physiotherapy work now conducted in the wards. Plans and Ideals for Future Work Few institutions in the country community of the land, setting up have the opportunity of perpetuating standards which they have been their usefulness and of influencing taught, is equally fundamental work the health and well-being of the of the hospital. It behooves the nation that is afforded hospitals, hospital, therefore, to develop the The immediate care of the sick and highest of standards and to see to injured is their primary work, but it that these young men and women the training of thousands of nurses are given the best possible training, and internes who go out into every This, in a word, typifies the ideal of [i6]